Books

There has been a resurgence of books about Forth. Many of these are electronic publications which can be freely downloaded. If you find more that you can recommend, please let us know.

Available in paper form

We found all the books again after the office refurb!

Please allow for shipping costs when ordering. “Forth Programmer’s Handbook” and “Forth Application Techniques” are available at low cost until stocks are exhausted.

US dollar and Euro prices will be calculated using the exchange rate at the day of invoicing.

UK Pounds

Euros

US Dollars

Approximate Exchange Rate (GBP=1.00)

1.00 GBP

1.13 EUR

1.34 USD

Program Forth, Stephen Pelc

24.50 GBP

27.78 EUR

32.80 USD

Forth Programmer’s Handbook, Conklin and Rather

10.00 GBP

11.34 EUR

13.39 USD

Forth Application Techniques, Elizabeth D. Rather

10.00 GBP

11.34 EUR

13.39 USD

Current books

These books are relevant to current Forth systems and applications. They follow current practice and standards.

Forth Lite Tutorial – Juergen Pintaske

A Forth Tutorial based around the free MPE VFX Forth. The code will also work on nearly all modern Forths that adhere to the ANS and/or Forth200x standards. The material is derived from a tutorial by Leo Wong.

Learning by Doing.

The best way to learn the computer language Forth is to try it out.

As is is interactive, you see the results immediatly. You’ll find the questions and the answers in the eBook. You can also download the MPE Forth Compiler software, try out the examples – and then design and try your own examples.

Programming Forth – Stephen Pelc et al

ISBN 978-0-9525310-5-0
After the release of the ANS Forth Standard in 1994, we revised MPE’s in-house course notes. In 2003 and 2004, we revised them again. Finally, with input from other people in the Forth community, we wrote this book about using modern Forth systems. It is based on the ANS Forth standard, and starting from some knowledge of programming, takes you from your first steps in Forth to advanced techniques not covered in other books.

Programming Forth includes a chapter discussing the MPE code layout standard, how it came about and how it evolves. This chapter replaces the document previously published as the MPE code layout standard.

The May 2011 release version is available for free download in PDF format (about 800 kb). Please send feedback to Stephen Pelc

I just wanted to thank you for writing Programming Forth. My assistant-in-training is chastising me for not finding it sooner – it’s the best primer I’ve been able to find on the web. Really helpful and well-written.

Printed books are also available.

Forth Programmer’s Handbook – Conklin & Rather

Forth Application Techniques – Rather

“From first-day Forth exercises to advanced techniques many programmers never learn on their own, this course notebook is filled with pithy, succinct discussion and exercises developed and refined over the years to quickly teach, test, and reinforce Forth language skills.”

Introducción a Forth – F.J. Gil Chica

Historical

These books cover Forth’s history, but are not suitable for learning current systems.

Stack Computers: the new wave – Philip Koopman, Jr.

Published in 1989, this was the first book to explore the breed of stack computers led by the introduction of the Novix NC4016 chip. The author starts with an overview of how stacks are used in computing, and a taxonomy of hardware stack support which includes a survey of approximately 70 stack machines past and present. Detailed descriptions, including block diagrams and instruction set summaries, are given for seven new stack processors from Harris Semiconductor, Novix, Johns Hopkins University/APL, MISC, WISC Technologies, and Wright State University. Major topics covered also include architectural analysis of stack machines, software issues, application areas, and potential for future development.

Real Time Forth – Tim Hendtlass

Although the examples are sadly based on a 16 bit DOS Forth, this book is the best presentation available of significant issues and examples for programming real-time systems in Forth. Available from the Taygeta FTP site.

Cellular Automata Machines – Toffoli and Margolus

Cellular automata machines with the size, speed, and flexibility for general experimentation at a moderate cost have become available to the scientific community. These machines provide a laboratory in which the ideas presented in this book can be tested and applied to the synthesis of a great variety of systems. Computer scientists and researchers interested in modeling and simulation as well as other scientists who do mathematical modeling will find this introduction to cellular automata and cellular automata machines (CAM) both useful and timely.

One of Roelf’s favourites. As far as he knows this is the only book about an application written in Forth, and how to use it (in Forth).

Thinking Forth – Leo Brodie

The following is taken from the description there.Thinking Forth is a book about the philosophy of problem solving and programming style, applied to the unique programming language Forth. Published first in 1984, it could be among the timeless classics of computer books, such as Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month and Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming.

Many software engineering principles discussed here have been rediscovered in eXtreme Programming, including (re)factoring, modularity, bottom-up and incremental design. Here you’ll find all of those and more – such as the value of analysis and design – described in Leo Brodie’s down-to-earth, humorous style, with illustrations, code examples, practical real life applications, illustrative cartoons, and interviews with Forth’s inventor, Charles H. Moore as well as other Forth thinkers.

If you program in Forth, this is a must-read book. If you don’t, the fundamental concepts are universal: Thinking Forth is meant for anyone interested in writing software to solve problems. The concepts go beyond Forth, but the simple beauty of Forth throws those concepts into stark relief.

So flip open the book, and read all about the philosophy of Forth, analysis, decomposition, problem solving, style and conventions, factoring, handling data, and minimizing control structures. But be prepared: you may not be able to put it down.

Threaded Interpretive Languages – R. G. Loeliger

A historical classic about implementing threaded languages.

Introduces individuals owning microcomputers or minicomputers with minimal peripherals to the design and implementation of a threaded interpreter as an approach to developing a standard, nonstandard programming language.

Forth – The Early Years – Charles H. Moore

Forth – The Early Years: Background information about the beginnings of this Computer Language. Forth is a very special computer language – as is the inventor Charles H Moore. This eBook describes the early years of Forth, a simple natural computer language as Charles describes it, and how it developed over the years. It documents the different locations where the inventor Charles H Moore worked and optimized Forth. MIT 1958, Stanford 1961, Freelance 1965, Mohasco 1968, NRAO 1971. Within programming community there is a very strong feeling about this language – for it and against it, often quite emotional. Charles’ moral from the eBook: I know Forth is the strongest language so far. I’m disturbed that people who should don’t appreciate how it embodies their own description of the ideal programming language. Kindle Edition.

Programming A Problem Oriented Language – Charles H. Moore

Programming A Problem Oriented Language: Forth – how the internals work. How do you define a computer language? Charles takes you through the different steps and as well the reasoning behind it. Kindle Edition

New from mpe – click on title for more information

Southampton, UK – 04 May 2016 – MPE today announced Interactive C support for ARM architecture via SockPuppet. The later a bug is found in the design cycle, the more design costs increase. Interactive debugging and adding test harnesses from the start ensures the code stays close to the initial […]

VFX Forth version 4.7 VFX Forth features common to all versions VFX Forth for Windows VFX Forth for Mac OS X VFX Forth for x86 Linux VFX Forth for ARM Linux VFX Forth for DOS There are new library interfaces to libcurl, libiconv, SQLite3 and zlib. Additional notations have been […]

Forth 7 cross compiler and targets Professional version includes PowerNet In detail … Version 7 of the MPE Forth cross compiler produces over 500 kb of binary code per second. There are many detail improvements to the compilers and the target code. The first major item for users of 32 […]

Lite cross compilers Lite compilers are for Windows only; they run well under Wine and other Windows emulators. Lite compilers are free of charge and are for non-commercial use only. If you want to commercialise your project just upgrade to a compatible Stamp, Standard or Professional compiler with more […]

We have considered many schemes for increasing the use of Forth. In the embedded world, the situation has become that you can download free (of charge) versions of many compilers for many programming languages. We feel that we have to do the same to reach new users and promote the […]

I was trying to avoid some work, and stumbled across this post (republished with permission) on one of the LinkedIn discussions. If you are at all interested in software reliability, Les Hatton is someone to respect. I was lost on LinkedIn (not for the first time) and spotted this discussion. […]